Today's News

The county’s latest jail inspection didn’t go any better than the one that occurred in May.
Roane County Sheriff Jack Stockton said the jail inspector recommended the jail, open less than four years, be decertified.
Stockton said the reason cited by the jail inspector last week was overcrowding.

The ongoing litigation over the Pinnacle Pointe development sparked a passionate debate last week amongst Harriman councilmen and city attorney Harold Balcom.

Councilman J.D. Sampson had put discussion about the litigation on last week’s City Council agenda with the intention of making a motion to approach developers Steve Kirkham and Jerry Duncan about mutually dropping their lawsuits.

Roane County Commission is set to vote today – Monday – on the county’s no-tax-increase budget.
The meeting is scheduled to start at 7 p.m. at the courthouse in Kingston.
The county’s current property tax rate is $2.18 per $100 valuation. The Roane County Board of Education is requesting an increase of 14 cents to make up a $1.582 million shortfall. The commission’s budget committee is recommending that the tax rate remain at $2.18.

After a promising sunny launch to last week’s return of the boat races in Kingston, down came the rain and washed the town’s premier Fourth of July festivities out.
While the holiday itself is a memory, officials still plan to celebrate Independence Day the Kingston way this Saturday.
Music, children’s games, food and craft vendors, a car show, watermelon-eating contest and the homemade raft race will be a daylong affair along Kingston’s waterfront, with the traditional fireworks show ending activities with a bang.

Twenty years ago. Maybe even longer.
That’s how long Knoxville attorney John Eldridge said it’s been since he represented Leon Houston in a civil matter.
“I didn’t know that,” U.S. Magistrate C. Clifford Shirley Jr. said. “I apologize.”
Shirley had asked Eldridge to come to the federal courthouse in Knoxville on Wednesday with the intention of appointing him to represent Leon Houston’s brother, Rocky, who faces 14 counts of being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency plans to scale back its oversight once the TVA ash spill cleanup is complete.
“We’ll continue to stay involved, albeit not as much as we are now,” said Craig Zeller, project manager for the EPA. “It won’t be a day-to-day thing.”
A dike failure at the Kingston Fossil Plant on Dec. 22, 2008 released more than 5 million cubic yards of ash into the environment.

Elizabeth Ashley Crisp, a 33-year-old Kingston woman, is accused of child rape.
The Roane County grand jury indicted her on June 17.
She was arrested on June 28.
According to the indictment, the male victim was younger than 13 years old.
The alleged crime occurred late last year.
Crisp also faces a theft charge in Roane County General Sessions Court.
The rape charge was filed in criminal court.
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Donnie Joe Golden, a 35-year-old Oakdale man, is charged with aggravated sexual battery and child rape.

Elizabeth Ashley Crisp, a 33-year-old Kingston woman, is accused of child rape.
The Roane County grand jury indicted her on June 17.
She was arrested on June 28.
According to the indictment, the male victim was younger than 13 years old.
The alleged crime occurred late last year.
Crisp also faces a theft charge in Roane County General Sessions Court.
The rape charge was filed in criminal court.
******
Donnie Joe Golden, a 35-year-old Oakdale man, is charged with aggravated sexual battery and child rape.

Kylie Hurst smiles at the two girls at the playground, using American Sign Language to say “baby girl.”
Her grandmother, Kim Ezell, sees this often as the 2-year-old, who has been deaf since birth, enthusiastically approaches children who do not know what to make of her silence.

“She’ll run up to these children and she’ll move that mouth 90 miles per hour and nothing will come out. They just look at her and walk off. It is sad, because she doesn’t realize they can’t hear her,” Kim Ezell said.

Two men arrested last October for a Sept. 28, 2012, burglary and robbery at a Roane State Hwy. apartment have now been indicted.
Gordon Wesley Gillespie, 23, and Sean Thomas Eken, 24, both of Oakdale, were indicted on one count of aggravated robbery, theft of property and aggravated burglary.
Original police reports said an officer was dispatched to Roane State Highway where Bryan Strand was lying in the bed when two men broke into the apartment.